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Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Products for your down under from down under
 I recently returned from Australia, the land my forebears colonized, where I visited Byron Bay's Black Label Adult Shop, a luxury sex toy retailer positioning itself as not only that hemisphere's largest purveyor of high class adult goods but also as a global luxury brand.I spoke with co-founder Bliss, who told me the website just went online after six months of toy acquisitions and the photography and product descriptions that accompanied them. Prior to making part of my mortgage from writing about marital aids, I subscribed to what is known as the Lebowski Doctrine: The Dude: Well, I still jerk off manually. Jackie Treehorn: Of course you do. ...but as I've aged (I'm now 22), I realize that sex toys can be fun, stylish, and - most of all - practical. Let's say you wanted to restrain your partner. Would you use household items like tire chains and sandpaper? Not after your incarceration, you wouldn't. Instead, you'd use something like this. Or, Ladies, what if your shame and materialism combined to thwart the midday masturbation recommended by your HMO? Well, you could secret one of these in your Prada bag and onlookers would just think you'd been by the seaside collecting stones, when in reality you are some kind of sybarite.  Fellas, are you a two-toweler like your friend Gram? Why not own a device that looks like a fancy towel rack from one of those upscale gated communities?I'd never been to Australia, so I was interested in the role of wombats in Parliament and if dingoes did actually roam the land eating babies. "Did dingoes eat your baby?" I asked Bliss. "No," she said. "Are they scheduled to?" I also asked the name of that reptile crawling perilously close to me. "It's a Water Dragon," she said. "Not a wallabee?" "No."  Despite its seaside resort location, Black Label ships immediately to most parts of the world within one week. I asked if there were locales that were trouble."I spent four years working with (Byron Bay's) Sax Leather and we found that a few countries consistently defrauded us with bad cards or issued chargebacks even though we know the items arrived," she said. "So to save the hassle and our limited funds we have decided not to deal with them." According to Black Label's website, countries including Indonesia, Bulgaria, Romania, other Eastern Europe countries, Equatorial Africa, Russia, Former Soviet Republics, and some South American countries are considered high risk and Black Label will not accept orders from these locations. It is a shame the company has had bad checks from Bulgaria, when Bulgarians, according to recent U.N. data, are in the most need of sex toys. That said, Black Label stocks products that are to sex toys what Kobe Beef is to Burger King. One of their most expensive gadgets is JimmyJane's Little Gold Vibrator (allegedly endorsed by Kate Moss), which retails for nearly US$300. I would have to bag 10-15 koalas to get that loot, plus I don't have a vagina. If I did, I understand it would be worth it. The company does not make its own products. Instead it imports its stock from companies like America's JimmyJane and Sweden's LELO to validate its claim of "the most beautiful sex toys on the planet". "We get most of our orders from America," Bliss said. "(Though) Australia is a seriously decadent country." I was not aware of this. None of the Star Wars footage shot in Australia seemed decadent, and all those Midnight Oil videos had a shameful lack of booty shaking, still, people were walking around naked on the way to the bar down the road. "Hippies," I said. I asked how U.S. consumers might benefit from products shipped from Australia. "I'm not aware of any sex toy shop in the U.S. that has a nude beach five minutes away," Bliss said. "That environment is reflected in our product choices." "Five minutes by kangaroo," I noted. "But how far by foot?" "Six minutes," she said. "If I were to order a sex toy from you," I said, "I wouldn't want its delivery to be delayed by some Australian holiday like Michael Hutchence Day or Air Supply Eve." "When we get an order we dispatch it immediately by express so it arrives in good time regardless of the customer's location," she explained wearily. "And if there is any threat of a delay, public holiday, low stock etc., our suppliers in the U.S. and Europe send the item directly." "Any plan for Yahoo Serious-branded products?" I asked. "Hell no." "Good on ya." Previously: Counting floggers on the wall: Mr. S Leather; Icon to explain dildoes; Dildopolis revisited: rugging See also: Black Label, Sexpo Australia, Natalie Imbruglia Labels: australia, international, interviews, marital aids ¶ Tuesday, June 26, 2007 
Comments
:
A short while ago---I admit that I've become a regular reader---you mentioned that, when your friends joke about your work as a porn reviewer, part of what makes their jokes tiresome is that, usually, the porn titles they make up for comedic effect really do exist. So, your Lebowski reference today leads me to ask: is there a real "Logjamming"?
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posted by
:
Friday, June 29, 2007
Great question! And I Don't Know.
But I checked two very reliable sites, The Internet Adult Film Database (iafd.com) and Porn retailer Gamelink (gamelink.com) and checked for both "Logjamming" and "Logjammin'" (the title as it appeared in "The Big Lebowski") and found nothing. So now it is your mandate to make that movie, Andrew. #
posted by
 Gram the Man
:
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thanks for response. That's a fantastic idea---now, all I need to do is find a nihilist to star in it. (By the way, I'll tell you the best part about employing nihilists: they work for nothing.)
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posted by
:
Friday, June 29, 2007
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